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  1. #361
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    Really, if you want to step back, you can say that every MMO that uses the holy trinity approach runs into this issue. We all know that, though.

  2. #362
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    Quote Originally Posted by Silenka View Post
    To address your first point, yes, of course. A job that is objectively better than others will be (and is) preferred by players. That's part of the point I was making. It's going to be almost impossible to have complete balance where no job is preferred over another in the same role, unless the devs actually just give every job in a role the exact same abilities with different names.

    As for my overall point (I think you think I'm arguing tanks specifically but I'm not), the discussion of battle changes on this forum has been a big theme, with most people voicing a preference for a battle system that is less monotone and more full of individual choice such as skill trees and additional stat choices. If the battle system were indeed to be changed to the way most of us seem to want, jobs that are objectively better/preferred by the community would absolutely exist, even worse than they are now. Yet, people can't even stop complaining about how WAR and SCH are OP compared to other jobs. There's no way a battle system more complex than the one XIV has right now could be introduced without creating even more of these issues.

    Sorry for the confusion. I recognize that WAR has some OP parts and balance is shitty. I was deviating from that specific conversation to make the more broad point above, based on the observation that even these (relatively small) preferences in job choice due to imbalance causes a lot of bitching.
    I understand you're not talking about tanks specifically, it's just easier to use that as an example because of how similar they are and how obviously better WAR is than the other two (and because it's the dichotomy I'm the most familiar with).

    I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on MMO combat systems because I've only played a couple of them, but I think there are generally two approaches to combat systems. They're either class-driven or encounter-driven. XIV is encounter-driven, meaning any combination of jobs within their defined roles should be able to complete an encounter. XI was more class-oriented, where different combinations of jobs would change your approach to an encounter and no job was really pigeon-holed into one role (...except PLD). Asking or hoping for XIV to move from one design to the other is pretty foolish. That's a major fundamental change in philosophy. Itemization is its own issue but Square/Yoshi clearly wants the focus of any encounter to be the mechanics of that encounter, not what gear you have. Personally I'm mostly hated the side-grade-y bullshit in XI because I never felt like my character was getting stronger, so that's not something I really care about.

    I also think that a job being preferred is a little different than the situation we have with WAR/PLD/DRK. There's a difference between being preferred for some things, and being the defacto standard for everything. And even then, this situation wouldn't be so frustrating if every job had its time in the limelight and they just rotated through which ones were over-tuned. But WAR and PLD have been this way since 1.2X and from 2.2 onward, and the gap only widened with Heavensward. They put the pressure on themselves to get the balance perfect in one try because they are super unwilling to make significant job adjustments between expansions. That's what frustrates me, personally. The balance will never be perfect but it could be a hell of a lot better than it currently is.

  3. #363
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    XI vs XIV doesn't work though. Its like trying to compare Everquest 1 or Anarchy Online against WoW 7.x

    FFXIV has fixed content with 5 pre-set specifications. 2x Tanks. 2x Healers. 4x DPS but have to have one of each Melee, Ranged (Physical), Ranged (Casting). The 4x DPS can be swapped around as necessary.

    Meanwhile XI doesn't give two shits what you bring in. WoW will let you enter a mythic instance by yourself if you really want to.

    And as far as itemization goes WoW reduced theirs to 1 primary, vitality, and 4x secondaries. And their secondaries now boil down to Haste, Crit, Versatality, and Mastery (Which depends on your profession's spec). Which, if you want to compare to FFXIV is practically the same with the exception of the unique Mastery stat and the fact that secondaries in FFXIV are weighted MUCH, MUCH, MUCH LESS with Accuracy still being a requirement in FFXIV and Parry being a dead stat for tanks.

    There won't be a perfect battle system without the entire system becoming a basic measure of "This job is the same as X but does these 3 things differently". [Which honestly you can argue about the jobs in FFXIV] But its something of necessity considering the limitation of gear distribution in XIV. Instead of the low drop rates but theoretically quick retry rates (Excluding Dyna, Salvage, etc... content) we get guaranteed quantities of epeen upgrade gear w/ weekly lockouts.

    FFXIV has its pillars of game design set and has stuck to them since the 2.0 relaunch. Meanwhile blizzard will tear down one to establish another with each subsequent expansion. We'll see if FFXIV 4.0 replicates this but I doubt it with their quick patch cycles.

  4. #364
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    i'm with Silenka on the issue of job variation. With the DF roles in place, each job within the same role is SUPPOSED to function at the same level of competency, but doing so with a different flair. The problem here really is that this ends up making battles and playing new jobs an absolute bore because you know ultimately there is nothing your job will bring to the table that makes you better than other jobs as a whole. There is no point trying to push the boundary - it was already set.

    Of course, in reality this isn't true because when you design for variation in a bunch of novel ways, they just cannot practically amount to the same levels of efficiency. There is no way in hell SCH will ever be of the same healing efficiency as the other 2 healers when you have an automatic healing pet. Thats why SCH still stays ahead, and PLD has fallen behind.

    Ultimately, as mentioned above, whether you design for equilibrium (in XIV) or specialization (eg. in XI), you can never come to perfect balance anyway. The latter is so much more exciting for the player tho.

    While I understand the need for role consistency, combined with the way stats and equipment work in XIV, it makes for extremely boring jobs. The only variation is really the buttons you press in your rotation.. and even that is rote after you play long enough. Only healer play feels special because it is far more reactionary. Gearing is absolutely mindless - the fact that I can wear the same gear on all my healers and play effectively, or between BLM and SMN because they work the same way.. it speaks volumes about how pointless gearing is apart from chasing ilvls. But by now I kinda have accepted this to be the norm in XIV.

    It's a bit too late to change this (and I'm not proposing they should), but there are many other ways they can deepen the job/battle system further. If they don't want to create battle niches, a little more unique stat itemization for jobs could go a long way in making the gearing process less boring. Allowing jobs to be played in more than 1 way is also a good measure (perhaps dedicated stances like AST, which would change your rotations or the way you use each skill, and then balancing jobs between their stances so that they are realistic options for players to use).

    Considering the focus on PVP, and the potential introduction of more off-DF activities like PotD (where DF role balance doesn't need to exist, and job individuality shines), I actually expect there to be more job differentiation when 4.0 rolls by. Hopefully they figure out a way to prune older abilities and at the same time give jobs more depth than they currently have.

  5. #365
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    Wait, BLM and SMN work the same way?

    :thinking:

    I mean, excluding the fact that there isn't any reason to actually bring them into a raid, they actually are pretty different imo. And good luck wearing SMN gear with BLM. They both gear completely differently.

    I'm not saying I don't agree with your premise of your post, but they are both fairly different jobs. Sure, they could improve them and make them even more unique, but honestly its more important that SE actually make casters viable.

  6. #366
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    XIV is a game where your job is intended to do little more than determine what you look like while you fulfil your role in a party.
    This is how I feel. In return for less drama and more acceptance we've lost almost everything else. I understand why there is so much focus on balancing classes but it does make them tedious.

  7. #367
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eldelphia View Post
    This is how I feel. In return for less drama and more acceptance we've lost almost everything else. I understand why there is so much focus on balancing classes but it does make them tedious.
    That's not a fault at balancing classes. Its a fault of designing classes and lazy/poor balancing.

  8. #368
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    Quote Originally Posted by haroldsaxon View Post

    I mean, excluding the fact that there isn't any reason to actually bring them into a raid, they actually are pretty different imo. And good luck wearing SMN gear with BLM. They both gear completely differently.

    .

    Nope. Their ultimate BiS might be different but a SMN in BLM BiS would do 98% of the DPS as a SMN in SMN BiS and vice versa. Gear matters so little its borderline useless outside of a few caps. (acc cap, 9 hit zerk etc)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Taint View Post
    Nope. Their ultimate BiS might be different but a SMN in BLM BiS would do 98% of the DPS as a SMN in SMN BiS and vice versa. Gear matters so little its borderline useless outside of a few caps. (acc cap, 9 hit zerk etc)
    If I was to switch to a SMN BiS on my BLM, I feel there would be more than a 50 dps (2%) due to losing a large amount of spellspeed. I also can't imagine that having 1100+ spellspeed is good on SMN for their mana, which directly hurts their DPS, but I really am not experienced with SMN to say for sure.

    I'll try it on a dummy tomorrow to be sure, but what I was trying to highlight is that they have different stat priorities and a different playstyle. I never said the playstyle was completely different and I do hope in 4.0 they try and take each class further in different directions, but to say they're clones of each other is wrong imo.

  10. #370
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    I thought that for this latest cycle, SS actually wasn't the god-tier stat for BLM and it was actually equal to crit? I haven't kept up since I don't play BLM seriously so not sure if that was actually still the case.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lokus View Post
    I thought that for this latest cycle, SS actually wasn't the god-tier stat for BLM and it was actually equal to crit? I haven't kept up since I don't play BLM seriously so not sure if that was actually still the case.
    I've not seen any math to back that up, and from my experience nothing comes close to spellspeed on BLM (based on breakpoints and some pretty cool things you can do with more spellspeed). Krindor is working on a simulator but I think BLM is pretty far down on his list.

  12. #372
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    https://dervyxiv.wordpress.com/stat-weights/

    Seems that's where I got the weights from but like I said, don't know how accurate it is since Dervy himself was skeptical.

  13. #373
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    SMN and BLM are as divergent as two same-role jobs get in this game, and it isn't even close. In comparison, the tank, melee, support, and healer jobs are all practically identical; if all the roles were as different as SMN and BLM are, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

    In fact, it's pretty funny that SE is so dead set against the ACN dual-job system, because (in 3.x) SCH and SMN are probably the two best-designed jobs in the game.

  14. #374
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    They're probably against it because the base class system fucks everything up. Half their abilities have to be dual-purpose which is why SCH is so good.

  15. #375
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Dan View Post
    In fact, it's pretty funny that SE is so dead set against the ACN dual-job system, because (in 3.x) SCH and SMN are probably the two best-designed jobs in the game.
    I disagree. Half the reason why it's so hard to retool SMN and SCH is because they share the same class, which means SCH benefits from ACN's dps abilities. In terms of design, I'd actually give it to WAR. This is disregarding any thoughts of whether it's OP as shit or not.

  16. #376
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    I don't get why people call classes with no weaknesses "well designed" unless it's just loss aversion kicking in but I don't remember people getting so defensive about nerf's in FFXI. party members should function like chess pieces not kinged checker pieces.

  17. #377
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    I dunno man. Drgs got pretty damned defensive about their nerf in XI. Fair points too, because the job was busted for the wrong reasons initially, and received literal crap to compensate for pulling out the (necessary) rug.

    I remember Wars getting uppity when War/nin wasn't as busted as it had originally been.

  18. #378
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carth View Post
    I disagree. Half the reason why it's so hard to retool SMN and SCH is because they share the same class, which means SCH benefits from ACN's dps abilities.
    That would be an explanation for why SCH works... except it really isn't, as SCH isn't an amazing DPS with passable heals. The things that make SCH good are not ACN's DPS abilities; you could give SCH CNJ's DPS abilities and SCH would still be a princess.

    However, that explanation is entirely insufficient at explaining why SMN works. There are plenty of other jobs that DON'T have to worry about a different role abusing native class abilities, and yet their designers still couldn't help but step on their own dick.

  19. #379
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alisha View Post
    I don't get why people call classes with no weaknesses "well designed" unless it's just loss aversion kicking in but I don't remember people getting so defensive about nerf's in FFXI. party members should function like chess pieces not kinged checker pieces.
    We must have had different audiences because I remember a lot of players complain about nerfs in XI. Even more when jobs that aren't their favorite got buffed.

    I call WAR a well-designed job because there's nothing on their ability list that feels completely worthless in any given fight. Inner Beast is probably WAR's least used move, but only because you'd rather use Fell Cleave. Even on magical fights, you still want to use Raw Intuition to gain a stack. As stupidly strong as WAR is, it's not like they're just facerolling buttons and moonwalking through every fight with 2k dps. In what they're supposed to do, it's rather well-designed. To me, their real problem is just a matter of tweaking numbers. Storm's Path makes sense on WAR (Debuffing a mob through attacking it), it just does too much. Fell Cleave and Decimate makes sense on WAR as it's meant to be the "dps tank", it's just their potencies are overtuned. And I'd argue WAR's self-healing capabilities is what pushes them over. Being able to not require your healers to touch you because you can literally self-heal through the damage of an entire tank buster is completely unique to WAR. But all of this can be tweaked through changing numbers and WAR would still be a very good job.

    Same can't be said for DRK and especially PLD. DRK has some outright counter-intuitive moves and DA'd Power Slash is the bane of the universe, and a DRK wants to be tanking in every fight because if they don't, they're losing damage and mp regeneration while gaining nothing in return. PLD straight up has useless abilities for the large majority of fights, and most of their cooldowns are too long for basically no reason (Raw Intuition is 90s, Dark Dance is 60s, Bulwark is... 180s). Fixing their problems demands changing their abilities and how they function.

  20. #380
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lokus View Post
    https://dervyxiv.wordpress.com/stat-weights/

    Seems that's where I got the weights from but like I said, don't know how accurate it is since Dervy himself was skeptical.
    Erm, he has SS > Crit? But yeah, there's a lot more work needing to be done on BLM.

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